


Healers Dilemma

by melliyna



Category: Valdemar Series - Mercedes Lackey
Genre: Babies, Multi, Rape Recovery, Threesome - F/M/M, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-18
Updated: 2010-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-13 18:49:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/140521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melliyna/pseuds/melliyna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of <i>Arrows Fall</i>. Talia and the messiness of healing when you never expected to have the time. AU in terms of the survival of a particular character but otherwise unchanged. Warning for references to assault, violence and trauma. Dear recipient - I hope you are not terribly terribly disappointed!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Healers Dilemma

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Amand_r](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amand_r/gifts).



> For my own beloveds. You are my light in dark places, where all other lights go out.

Talia thought she'd known that was going to be hard after she got back. She'd seen somewhat of what it could be, as a Mind Healer and yes, even as herself over the years. Her family after all had been enough to understand something of what it was like to be hurt. After Ancar she began to think she hadn't even begun to understand what it meant to heal and what it meant to navigate the sharp edges. But she has to go on - as a Herald, stopping is not an option. There is Selenay and Elspeth who has a scared face and her own pain to work through. Her own realisation of how she could kill.

And then there was Kris, who had been broken in the same kind of way but who seemed to know the right things to say and when not to speak. She and he can map each others sharp edges and each of the soft spots that didn't need touching. They know when they just need to curl up and sometimes they help each other more than Dirk can help them. Why he's Dirk is that he knows when that is and can, generally deal with it now. Realising all three of them love each other was just one more thing to negotiate.

Talia can't think it's wrong, even when part of her does, even after years living among Heralds. Maybe especially because of living among Heralds sometimes, because it feels wrong to have something that is hers, something that is not her duty or thoughts of Valdemar. Something that is just Kris and Dirk and flowers and music and a warm bed and warm bodies. But she'd tried to bury it at first, those first few months - the first few days it had been right. It had been needed, to get through the aftermath of a war and the politics and to heal physically. To watch Dirk heal and to see that Kris did not try to move too much or too soon. To get the fields back to some kind of normality, to inform the families of their dead and to honour the dead and the living. To minister to the living.

That after all, is the duty of the Queens Own. She stood beside Selenay and in an odd way focusing on shutting out the pain was an asset. Just another thing she could use to deal with the council, to make sure that the nobles either underestimated her or feared what she could do as the situation demanded. She could use her scars and the bandages on her feet to make sure that all knew what it meant to be in the pay of Ancer and to show what it means to inflict such a thing on another.

No one who saw Talia had doubted her story or Selenay's legitimacy. It was the price she balances against the nights of waking up screaming and the nights that Kris woke up screaming or flinched away from even friendly hands. The latter is sometimes, something that Talia cannot bear that she pushed aside, though as Kris says, they are all three Heralds. They know their duty after all.

It took a long time before even Dirk could touch Kris without him flinching, life bonded or no. Kris and Talia had shared that, in their own way and that had perhaps, made it a little easier to bear. That, that was how they healed in small doses and somewhere along the line Talia realises that maybe she'll never really be healed but somehow, it matters a little less each day. She'd had Kris beside her, in that dungeon. They hadn't talked of it, at first and maybe there are some things they can never tell, that are better left to fade but they could talk. Sometimes they talked of nothing, sometimes of every detail but it was speech. Not hiding behind pleasantries and Heralds whites. Kris tells them sometimes he wishes he'd died of his wounds in that courtyard after all - that it wasn't luck that meant the arrows missed and his Companion could run with Rolan. Talia tells him sometimes she hated him, for not having died, for being there to use against her. They can talk to each other, even when it hurts.

You have to hurt, to heal. The hurt doesn't change Talia learns, though it lessens and aches less frequently with time. Their son - hers and Kris and Dirks is born and then their daughter and she and Kris learn slowly or maybe relearn what safety is. What home means and it is laughter and yes, arguing and duty and children and gardens and sometimes, more activity than any of them know how to navigate. But it is healing, here. Kris is the best with the children, which perhaps should not be so surprising – Dirk teaches them to ride and Talia watches their son learn music and toddle his first steps, sticky hands in hers. She’s still not sure she entirely likes babies but she adores these two, even during the early morning feeds.

Even when Kris had to show her how to change them and even when he laughed at the end. She never would have thought Kris would have been the one to be good at that sort of thing but he and Dirk, they take to it. Talia finds herself happy to be the one who teaches Alyna and Vka how to sew and how to ride and card wool and yes, tend sheep. Even if Vka attempts to ride the sheep and is cheerfully flung off to land in a haystack. Alyna is their quiet one, who loves horses and books and is closest to Kris. Little Bird, they call her. She wonders sometimes, how it was with her father and his love for his children and whether any of those at the Hold might still think of her at all now.

Her scars still sting, but they no longer bleed, much of the time. That one is one of the ones that will always sting, especially when she looks at Alyna who reminds her so very much of Anders sometimes. But she knows the sting will pass, at least. 


End file.
